LOST TUDOR CITY: The Wooden Fence, Part Two

We've written about the wooden fence before, but the discovery of some old photos make it prime for revisiting.

To recap: the rustic, split-rail fence was installed in February, 1953 as part of the neighborhood upgrades for the arrival of the United Nations. It appears that the city had exhausted its budget and so the decision was made to replace the broken-down fence with wood instead of iron; it was the cheaper option. 

It was never much liked, but endured for forty-one years. Under the auspices of Tudor City Greens, it was replaced in 1994 by an iron one very similar to the original. 

The color photos below were made in 1988.

East 41st Street and Tudor City Place. A different style of fence was used on the corners of the park.

The South Park, showing all of the split-rail fencing. There was an iron version opposite 42nd Street.

The North Park, facing northwest.

At the corner of East 43rd Street and Tudor City Place, again two fence styles.

Tudor City View, the monthly community magazine, featured the wood fence on its cover many times. 

 

One must admit, however, that the wood looked good when it snowed.

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I am going away on vacation, so that means the next edition of Tudor City Confidential will be on October 16th. See you then! 

RESIDENTS: Claudia Schiffer

Welcome back to our residents of note feature, where today we spotlight Claudia Schiffer, supermodel and one-time Manor resident.

Schiffer was born in Germany and discovered in a discotheque at age 18. Soon thereafter, she was photographed for Guess Jeans by Ellen von Unwerth (above) and her tousled look reminded many of Brigitte Bardot. "The company became much more known around the world because of Claudia" said the owner of Guess Jeans. A supermodel was born.

She posed on cars and in speedboats, and had a roaring career. She holds the Guinness record for the most magazine covers ever ‒ over 1,000. In 2002, she married director Matthew Vaughn and they now have three children. 

Schiffer lived in The Manor at the beginning of her career, probably starting around 1990, and probably underwritten by Guess Jeans. The above photograph was made on the terrace of PH 6, her apartment. "From the archive," she says. "Early days in my first apartment in NYC, and my first ever Fendi bag." 

Thank you David Reiff for the tip.

ARTIFACT: The Tudor City Taxi Top

Today's artifact is a circa-1999 taxicab sign ‒ a subgenre of outdoor advertising known in the trade as a 'taxi top' ‒ promoting Continental Airlines. At the time, the carrier had just launched a new ad campaign built around the slogan Work Hard, Fly Right.

The droll copy for the taxi top ads was specifically focused on the airline's nonstop destinations. Above and below, some examples.


And lastly, the reason for this post, from the collection of Brian Thompson:

PICTURE OF THE DAY

Nicole Kidman and George Clooney having a bad day on 41st Street in a scene from The Peacemaker. The climax of this 1997 flick was shot in Tudor City. More details here and here. 

The HOTEL TUDOR SIGN

There's another historic sign in Tudor City, this one hidden in plain sign atop the Westgate New York City hotel. It reads Hotel Tudor, in a T-shaped design suggesting a crossword puzzle.

The sign dates from 1930 when the hotel opened, and has a fleeting brush with demolition in 1999. New owners have renamed the hotel the Crowne Plaza at the United Nations, and want to replace the sign.

Since the sign is part of the Tudor City Historic District, the owners petition the Landmarks Commission to replace it with a sign bearing its new name. Community opposition is swift: "They knew it was there when they bought it, so they should be stuck with it," says George Brown, President of the Tudor City Association.

The Crowne Plaza offers a conciliatory statement: "It's not David against Goliath," it reads. "This isn't a big company against a little community board. We're working to keep everyone happy." Not long after that, the idea of removing the sign is quietly abandoned, and it remains in place to this day ‒ four name changes later.

One night in 2007, this blog was walking home from work and found the sign lit up, above. Sadly, it was a fluke, a one-night-only appearance.  UPDATE: the sign has been relighted by Westgate Resorts, the new owners of the hotel.

Tudor City on Film: Behind the scenes of THE PEACEMAKER

Some candid photos of a set built in Tudor City for The Peacemaker, the 1997 thriller starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman profiled earlier. Taken by an unknown photographer, the shots document the construction of a chapel for a key sequence in the flick.

Built in the 41st Street cul-de-sac between No. 25 and No. 5, the chapel thrills the locals. Never before (or since) has a set this elaborate been constructed in the neighborhood.

Above, the finished product in a view looking east, with No. 5 looming behind it. Its northern wall is unfinished given pre-determined camera angles.

Much effort is expended in its construction ‒ despite its short amount of actual screen time. No. 25 at upper left.

In addition to the chapel, a fence, sidewalk and landscaped lawn are also constructed.

The back of the set in a view looking west. Paging the Wizard of Oz.

How it appears in a freeze frame from the finished film. On the right, No. 5 gets the full-on F/X treatment, morphed into a grand cathedral. So why did the filmmakers go to such elaborate lengths to construct the chapel? 

The chapel was built to facilitate a stunt, a climactic explosion which propels our heroes ‒ or at least our heroes' stunt doubles ‒ out onto Tudor City Place. 

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Our unknown photojournalist also captured some candid shots of Nicole Kidman, George Clooney and various crew members on set.

Photographs from the collection of Mary Frances Shaughnessy. Thank you, MFS!

Tudor City on Film: THE GODFATHER PART III

This episode of Tudor City on Film examines The Godfather Part III, the final entry in The Godfather trilogy. Starring Al Pacino and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, this 1990 picture was initially panned as the weakest link of the trio, but now, 28 years later, its critical reputation has grown.

The Tudor City sequence was shot on the roof terrace of Windsor Tower's Penthouse 1, standing in for the terrace of the Godfather's Manhattan residence.

The sequence opens with an establishing shot of Tudor City ‒
 No. 25 as seen from the viewpoint of Penthouse 1.

The Godfather (Al Pacino) and his daughter (Sofia Coppola) 
are having breakfast on Penthouse 1's airy roof terrace.

His daughter has been named head of a new charitable foundation, 
and she asks her father if it's a front to "shine up your public image."

The Godfather denies it . . .

. . . swearing to her "the foundation is real, this is legitimate."

But both of them know he's lying. . .

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This marks Pacino's second film set in Tudor City. He also made a memorable appearance in a nerve-rattling scene in Scarface, set outside No. 5. More about that here.

Tudor City on Film: A PERFECT MURDER

This installment of Tudor City on Film focuses on A Perfect Murder, a 1998 thriller built around a deadly love triangle. The flicker features Gwyneth Paltrow as a two-timing wife, Michael Douglas as her cuckolded husband, and Viggo Mortensen as her scheming lover.

The picture's an updated remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder, a story of blackmail, lost latch keys and precisely timed phone calls. The remake adds a pointy meat thermometer and a gorier ending to the mix. It's a hit at the box office, despite lukewarm notices: "A triumph of style over substance " (Washington Post), "Dial M for Muddle" (Toronto Globe).

The Tudor City sequence is brief, set in the 43rd St. cul-de-sac and Ralph Bunche Park.

On lunch break from her job at the U.N., Paltrow is planning to rendezvous with her lover, when her husband surprises her. He suggests they lunch together.

Meanwhile, her lover is waiting at the end of the 43rd St. cul-de-sac. . .

. . . when he spots her . . .

. . . getting into a black car with her husband at 43rd and First.

He does not like what he sees. His jaw muscles tighten, and the music swells. . .

"Who on Earth is Fred F. French?"

Following up on our last post about the French Company's Fifth Avenue headquarters, we fast-forward to 1997, when the building turns up in a celebrated novel, Underworld, by a celebrated author, Don DeLillo (White Noise, Libra). The book is of especial interest to this blog since it actually asks the question "Who on earth is Fred F. French?"

Set over the second half of the 20th century, Underworld is "an aria and a wolf-whistle" to that era, according to one observer. Its far-flung cast of characters includes historic figures such as Frank Sinatra, Lenny Bruce, Jackie Gleason, J. Edgar Hoover. . . and Fred F. French.

French makes three cameo appearances in the novel. The first occurs when two fictional characters, Rochelle and Klara, are sightseeing in Manhattan with Klara's mother.

. . . they stood outside a skyscraper on Fifth Avenue, it was probably 1934 and the Japanese were entrenched in Manchuria and they looked up the face of the building and walked through the polished lobby and it was the Fred F. French Building, which intrigued the girls because who on earth was Fred F. French, and Klara's mother, who knew things, who worked for a social service agency and studied child psychology, who followed world events and worried about China, who planned these outings systematically, did not have a clue to the identity of Fred F. French, and this intrigued the girls even more, intrigued and amused them, they were thirteen and fourteen and everything amused them.

Fred French becomes a running joke between them. They ride home after sightseeing on the Third Avenue El. . .

. . .looking out the train windows into tenement apartments on both sides, hundreds of film-flickering lives shooting past their eyes forty feet above the street, and Rochelle might see an undershirted man leaning tousled out his window and, Maybe that's Fred F. French, she'd say, he's had a streak of bad luck, ha ha. . .

Several years later, boy-crazy Rochelle is petting with Bob in the backseat of a car, with Klara similarly engaged in the front seat.

. . . And at the all-crucial moment Rochelle Abramowicz looked over the boy's shoulder into the eyes of Klara Sachs and said to her, thoughtfully, What do you think the F stands for?
   And Klara said, What F?
   And Rochelle said, The F in Fred F. French.
   This was a good thing to say, maybe it was the best thing anyone had ever said, then or now, under the circumstances, and it made them friends again.

Underworld is not only a bestseller, but also a National Book Award nominee and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

THE SIGN, Part Three

The third installment in our four-part series on the Tudor City Sign.

The sign in 2015. Tubeless, forlorn and forgotten.

In 1988, the sign is landmarked as part of the Tudor City Historic District. Although it's designated as part of a landmark edifice, it does have historic significance of its own. Electric roof signs advertising apartment houses are rare in NYC (much more common in LA), and this one is said to be the only surviving example in Manhattan.

It goes dark around 1990. One version has it that the sign is extinguished because its electric current is interfering with the UN's communications equipment. More likely is that it simply conks out, and the newly co-oped No. 45 doesn't want the expense of repairing it. It slowly falls into disrepair.

In 1995, No. 45 petitions the Landmarks Preservation Commission to have it removed, arguing that it's "in bad shape, made out of angle iron, and dangerously rusted out." Architecture historian Christopher Gray drolly notes that "over at Tudor City, it's not freedom of expression they're fighting for ‒ it's freedom from expression." After 15 minutes of deliberation, the commission rejects the application, calling the sign "a piece of real estate history."  

Thankfully, the saga of the sign has a happy ending. Read it in Part 4, here. 

Below, close-ups of the sign made in 2013.

Tudor City on Film: THE PEACEMAKER

This installment of Tudor City on Film focuses on The Peacemaker, a 1997 film starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman that delivers its action-packed climax in Tudor City.

The Peacemaker tells the tale of an army colonel (smooth-talking George) and an atom bomb expert (no-nonsense Nicole) searching for Russian nuclear weapons stolen by terrorists who plan to detonate one of them at the United Nations. 

Besides watching Kidman and Clooney in their prime, the picture's high point is a breathless chase through Tudor City at the finale, complete with some geography-altering special effects.

The sequence begins by introducing the U.N. and Tudor City for the climactic chase.

Hot on the trail of the bomb-toting terrorist, pistol-packing Clooney barrels along 42nd Street (The Woodstock and Hotel Tudor behind him).

He tears up the Tudor City staircase, then gets a call from Kidman in front of No. 25.

He charges across the Tudor City Bridge to find her. 

They reunite on 41st Street, where she suspects the bomb-toting terrorist is hiding in the church on the corner.

Yes, that's right, an only-in-the-movies church in Tudor City. View above looks east down 41st Street toward the river. (Conrad's Bike Shop, bottom left, lends some perspective). Thanks to some special effects wizardry, No. 5 has morphed into a Gothic cathedral, above right. The towers behind it are equally imaginary, apparently constructed in the middle of the East River. Below, the Tudor City Place street sign (above the Stop sign) keeps it real.

They capture the terrorist in the church, and Kidman, an expert atom bomb dismantler, gets to work. She's only half-successful, managing to separate the plutonium from the detonator ‒ phew ‒  but the remaining explosives go off, sending them smashing through the church's stained-glass window in glorious slo-mo. . .

. . .and catapulting them onto Tudor City Place.

Both miraculously survive with minor scratches, in true action-movie style.

The sequence ends with a sweeping crane shot down 41st Street that gives No. 2, the 3 H's, the Hotel Tudor and Essex House their due.

See clips of the street chase here and the bomb exploding here.